At grisly DWI death scene, driver tried to blame ex

Robert Stinziano wipes his eyes after pleading guilty to intoxication manslaughter.

Photo By Express-News file photo

At the punishment-only intoxication manslaughter trial, a prosecutor ripped a piece of paper in two to illustrate what happened to Karla Merrie Viesca's Honda Civic when she was killed in a crash on Blanco Road.

Robert Samuel Stinziano claimed, “I'm not driving. I'm not driving. Who put me in this seat?”

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Moments after drunken wrong-way driver Robert Samuel Stinziano sliced motorist Karla Merrie Viesca's Honda Civic in half, leaving her dead in the middle of Blanco Road, witnesses rushed to his sedan to find him passed out over the steering wheel.

“I'm not driving. I'm not driving. Who put me in this seat?” he repeatedly said after regaining consciousness, multiple witnesses told a jury Tuesday as Stinziano's punishment-only intoxication manslaughter trial began.

Moments later, the same witnesses noticed that Stinziano had moved to his passenger seat. Gurgling noises could be heard underneath him.

“Sir, is somebody in the car with you?” medical assistant Andrea Kaltenbach recalled asking him as she realized passenger Kaylie McCaskill was stuffed under the dashboard, nearly out of sight.

“That's when he tried to scoop her up and put her in the driver's seat,” Kaltenbach testified. “She was face-down in the seat of the car and he was sitting on her head.”

Stinziano, 25, could face up to 20 years in prison for the intoxication manslaughter of Viesca, 24, and an additional 10 years for the intoxication assault of McCaskill, who was his on-again, off-again girlfriend.

He began the day by standing next to attorneys in 290th state District Court and twice saying, “I plead guilty.” He intends to ask the jury for probation.

Stinziano was more than twice the legal limit for intoxication the morning of Oct. 17, 2010, as he T-boned Viesca's car at Blanco and the Loop 1604 access road, prosecutor David Henderson said in an opening statement, ripping a large piece of paper to demonstrate how Viesca's car split in two.

“Her skull was fractured in so many places her bones cut into her brain and killed her instantly,” Henderson said of the Eagle Pass resident.

The prosecution's account of that morning is “painfully true,” defense attorney Patrick Hancock later conceded as he begged jurors to keep an open mind about the punishment range.

“You're going to hear from (Stinziano) about shameful, shameful, drunken, panicked decisions,” he said. “You're going to see exactly what alcohol can do to somebody who's otherwise a very docile person.”

Among the bad decisions that night was Stinziano's refusal to identify McCaskill to bystanders or authorities, even as they feared she was going to die and wanted to contact her parents, prosecutors said.